Melinda Johnson from The Post Standard Writes About The Origin

On the origins of 'Origin'
Oratorio to get its world premiere at SUNY Oswego
Thursday, February 05, 2009
By Melinda Johnson
Arts editor

One could describe Richard Einhorn’s creation of a choral piece about Charles Darwin and “On the Origin of Species” as a story of evolution about evolution.

The composer has been interested in evolution since high school in the late 1960s. During those years, Einhorn also began composing music.

With the world premiere of his oratorio “The Origin” at State University College at Oswego this weekend, Einhorn has, well, evolved. I’ve been wanting to do a piece about science for a very long time. And a piece that really was about the science and to see if there was any way that I could work with that as a dramatic subject,” he says in a recent phone interview from his Manhattan home.

“It became pretty obvious that ‘The Origin of Species’ would be a wonderful topic. Of all the subjects in science, ‘The Origin of Species’ turns out to be one of the more approachable topics because anybody can read it. You know Marge Simpson has read it on ‘The Simpsons.’ If she can read it, anybody else can.”

“The Origin” tells the story of Darwin and his scientific paper, “On the Origin of Species,” and uses his letters and autobiography to frame the 90-minute oratorio. Darwin’s 1859 publication of his theory — species change in order to survive — is considered to be the beginning of modern biology.

Einhorn worked for 18 months on the choral piece that traverses art forms. The video images of filmmaker Bill Morrison, which range from Darwin in a garden to seeds floating through the air, will serve as a backdrop to vocal performances by soprano Jacqueline Horner, of the vocal group Anonymous 4, tenor Todd Graber, bass Eric Johnson, the women’s vocal ensemble Kitka, the SUNY Oswego College Choir, Oswego College-Community Orchestra and Oswego Festival Chorus. He also collaborated with poet Catherine Barnett on the libretto.

“It came out a lot more humorous than I ever expected,” says Einhorn of his oratorio. “There’s a lot of it that’s very sweeping and broad and intense and exciting. There’s parts of it that are very haunting, particularly regarding the death of Annie, Darwin’s child, which was such an important event in his life.”

Listeners also will hear a sprinkling of doo-wop and a sea chantey, says Einhorn, who also has composed for film, ballet, television and movies.

With this choral work, audiences will be introduced to the unusual vocals of Kitka, whose members are renowned for Slavic singing but will perform in English for the first time for “The Origin,” says Einhorn. He characterizes their Slavic singing as a strange, intense folk music style that is haunting. ”At the same time that it sounds primitive, it’s also very, very, very smart and sophisticated,” he says. Screams, whispers, some of the purest vocal sounds, “as pure as Gregorian chants,” then whooping, screeching and strange noises are part of the auditory experience.

”They should be prepared to have their minds blown,” he says.

Einhorn describes “The Origin” as “true to what I think of as Darwin’s spirit,” his joy at making new discoveries, testing nature, experimenting and trying to understand life’s mysteries.